1/48 Sol Modelismo

Gloster Meteor F.Mk4

  by Jeremias Nicolas Luchina

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  Argentina Independence Day 2007 

 

Some Hi! this is my Gloster Meteor F.Mk-IV in 1/48 scale.

History:

After WWII Great Britain was indebted with Argentina for delivery of goodies during that period, but the UK was unable to pay for food and raw material with currency, so instead offered manufactured products in lieu. Argentina recived 15 Lancaster, 30 Lincolns and 100 Meteors F.Mk IV.  This way Argentina became the first Latina-american country whit this kind of advanced equipment.  No other country in the region had jet fighters in their armies.  Almost all the planes were delivered between May and September 1948, in two groups: 50 were es R.A.F. planes and the other half were specially built by Gloster in their facility at Moreton, Valence.

In Argentina, from 1947 to 1948, the planes were deployed in Ezeiza airport, and from 1948 to 1950 in DAM Tandil, to be finally transferred to BAM Moron, province of Buenos Aires, where they served until the end of their operational life in December 29 1970.

The Kit:

This kit is from an Argentiean manufacturer, and as it is with many limited run kits, it shows great detail, but has a terrible fit. One thing: the resin was hard but very, very, very brittle.  I consider myself a careful modeler, but I broke almost all the kit parts in one way or another.  But lucky me, a few weeks ago I accidentally broke a 1/48 Tamiya Meteor that I built a few years ago, so I "cannibalized" some parts from this kit.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

I built it mostly out of the box, with only a few details added from scratch.  I took a great deal of heavy work and tons of putty to produce an acceptable result, and some panels were lost during the sanding process, but after all this work and careful polishing the models was ready to paint.

I usually paint NMF with Alclad II, but I run out of it, and it is very hard to find in my country.  So I decied to try the one metallic paint that I had in my desk: Citadelīs Mithril silver... the result was great!!!  The shine is similar to the Alclad, but with some advantages. it is an acrylic, is cheap, it doesnīt need an undercoat and takes masking tape without any damage.  I will use this paint in the future.

Once the metallic paint dried I masked and painted the yellow band in the fuselage, the black matt antiglare panel and the white area in the vertical stabilizer.

Finally it was time for the decals: the kit supplies a great decal sheet made by Aztec, with four scheme option. I picked the one that covers F.IV C-084, Grupo 2 de Caza-bombardeos, BAM Moron Buenos Aires 1961.

The decals are thin and easy to apply, but they donīt take Micro-sol very well. I learned this the hard way.

The final assembly involved gluing the smaller items, such as the Pitot tube, gear doors, antennas, etc.

Iīm very happy with the results I finally achived with this kit.  I know is not perfect, but it is a fine addition to my collection of Argentinean aircraft.

Jeremias 

Photos and text Đ by Jeremias nicolas Luchina